Invisionfree Spambots

...And the prevention of such.

See, there's this forum I'm an admin on (this one to be precise, and no I'm not advertising it) is a great forum and all, but for the most vexing issue of spambots. They flood in by the dozens, and so we have the registration set to Admin-approval only. This filters them out from joining, but then we have to delete them, which is a ridiculously tedious process. Also, even though we have only 218 registered members according to the counter, our member numbers are somewhere in the 5000s.

It's a minor nuisance but I was kind of hoping one of you guys knew something to put a stop to it. We're on the queue to be upgraded to Zetaboards, so I hope when the shift happens the bots will stop, but then again I'm not sure and I want to be ready if they do keep coming.

(And if this is in the wrong section, um yeah sorry ^^;)

host your own or find a private host... I have no idea why someone would settle for something like Invisionfree when private hosts are incredibly easy to find.

Involuntary Twitch said:

...And the prevention of such.

See, there's this forum I'm an admin on (this one to be precise, and no I'm not advertising it) is a great forum and all, but for the most vexing issue of spambots. They flood in by the dozens, and so we have the registration set to Admin-approval only. This filters them out from joining, but then we have to delete them, which is a ridiculously tedious process. Also, even though we have only 218 registered members according to the counter, our member numbers are somewhere in the 5000s.

It's a minor nuisance but I was kind of hoping one of you guys knew something to put a stop to it. We're on the queue to be upgraded to Zetaboards, so I hope when the shift happens the bots will stop, but then again I'm not sure and I want to be ready if they do keep coming.

(And if this is in the wrong section, um yeah sorry ^^;)

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ZOMG HI ZEPHYR IT'S ME TWILIGHT!=D

Umm... Let's see... Take time out of your time online to go through(best=when Kronakitty's online) and delete the spambots, but first, IP and e-mail ban them just incase they try to join again. Then, delete all their topics(of get one of the mods to.XD) and erase all traces of their existence.^^

But just in case this doesn't work, PM me on EVF for my back-up plan.=D

I'm afraid there's really nothing you can do to prevent the spambots from joining, aside from just blocking them with member moderation as you've been doing. However, the way that I've prevented them from being a real problem is by implementing a "validating" member group that will screen bots from real people with minimal hassle.

Most bots (all but one of the ones that I've encountered on the boards I'm a demi admin on) will create new threads, usually in forums like "announcements." Therefore, you create a usergroup that is prohibited from creating new threads and/or replying to existing threads in all but whatever boards you want to designate for their use. It should be set so that once they make one post, they are automatically elevated to full member status.

Because the board I work with is an RP board, I've set it up so that new members can only create new threads in the sign-up forum, which spambots ignore because to them it doesn't "look" important (next to the news/announcements form and so forth). I actually have replying enabled pretty much everywhere even for the temporary user group, because our boards have never had problems with the replying spambot variant.

So, it's a security measure that you can customize to suit the sort of board you run. You could totally turn off all thread creation powers, for example, and people would just need to post once to gain full board permissions. Or, you could go so far as to turn off all posting privileges whatsoever save in a specific forum, like a welcome board or something, where they'd have to reply to a certain thread to fully activate their account.

There are a few problems with this system, of course; first of all, the occasional bot will get around it (I've only had one do that to me so far, though), and of course it can't prevent bots from joining, only prevent them from causing trouble once they have. It creates a very minor inconvenience for new members. But it's a lot less of a hassle than member moderation, believe you me.

...IP and e-mail ban them just incase they try to join again

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Doesn't make a difference; spambots generate fake e-mail addresses and random IP's.

Um. First off, it is privately hosted I believe, and second it's not my forum. << I'm just a CoAdmin there; changing forums would be cumbersome and we would lose a lot of members and old records. And it's not within my power anyway.

And Twilight, that's what we've been doing-- I'm just asking if there's anything to install to prevent them from registering short of switching forums.

EDIT: Didn't see Negrek's post until now. Anyway, I like the must-post-in-registrations-board-first thing; that makes it slightly easier for the new members to validate themselves. Pity there's no way to stop them from coming altogether... I wish Invisionfree had image activation, but then again the producers of the spambots probably pay them not to. Um. So I'll run these ideas by the other Admin. Thanks! ^^

Oh, well, I don't know then...

Involuntary Twitch said:

Um. First off, it is privately hosted I believe, and second it's not my forum. << I'm just a CoAdmin there; changing forums would be cumbersome and we would lose a lot of members and old records. And it's not within my power anyway.

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It is not a private host - it's hosted on Invisionfree.

Get a different host. That's all I can say.